Domestic ViolenceDomestic violence under the penal code is defined as abuse committed against an adult or a minor who is a spouse, former spouse, cohabitant, former cohabitant, or person with whom the suspect has had a child or is having or has had a dating or engagement relationship.https://www.cabq.gov/police/albuquerque-family-advocacy-center/learn-more/domestic-violencehttps://www.cabq.gov/@@site-logo/seal-small.png

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence under the penal code is defined as abuse committed against an adult or a minor who is a spouse, former spouse, cohabitant, former cohabitant, or person with whom the suspect has had a child or is having or has had a dating or engagement relationship.

Have you or someone you know ever experienced the following by an intimate partner?

name-calling or put downs

isolation from family or friends

withholding of money

actual or threatened physical harm

sexual assault

destroyed property and actual or threatened harm to pets

These are examples of domestic violence, which includes partner violence, spousal abuse, child abuse, battering, and wife beating. This violence can take many forms, such as physical, emotional/psychological, sexual, and financial. It can also happen once in a while or all the time. Although each situation is different, there are common warning signs or "red-flag behaviors" to look out for, including those behaviors listed above. Knowing these signs is an important step in preventing and stopping abuse.

The lists below identifies a series of behaviors typically demonstrated by batterers and abusive people. All of these forms of abuse - psychological, economic, and physical come from the batterer's desire for power and control. The list can help you recognize if you or someone you know is in a violent relationship.

Minimizing, denying and blaming: making light of behavior and not taking your concerns about it seriously, saying the abuse didn't happen, shifting responsibility for abusive behavior, saying you caused it.

Economic control: interfering with your work or not letting you work, refusing to give you or taking your money, taking your car keys or preventing you from using the car, threatening to report you to welfare of other social service agencies.

Self-destructive behavior: abusing drugs or alcohol, threatening suicide or other forms of self-harm, deliberately saying or doing things that will have negative consequences (e.g., telling off the boss).

Isolation: preventing or making it difficult for you to see friends or relatives, monitoring phone calls, telling you where you can and cannot go.

Harassment: making uninvited visits or calls, following you, checking up on you, embarrassing you in public, refusing to leave when asked.

Acts of Violence

Intimidation: making angry or threatening gestures, use of physical size to intimidate, standing in doorway during arguments, out-shouting you, driving recklessly.